IRCC Minister Transition Binder 2025-05

Risk Management and Program Integrity

Context

Program integrity ensures the confidence of Canadians and the international community in Canada's managed migration system. Maintaining program integrity requires a multi-faceted approach to analyze, identify, and mitigate Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) program risks and threats.

A coordinated and informed risk management regime is essential to responsibly achieve Canada’s social, economic and humanitarian objectives and to maintain confidence in our immigration system.

Background

• The Minister is mandated to protect the health, safety and security of Canadians, while facilitating legitimate travel and integration of newcomers to maximize their contributions to the economy.
• While a shared responsibility across the Department, a dedicated sector serving as the central authority for integrity issues supports the Department by managing operational risk at the program and case level, leading on national security files, acting as the functional authority of the immigration screening program, and providing intelligence, trends, and risk mitigation strategies.
• IRCC's primary integrity partners include the Canada Border Services Agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; however, the Department collaborates through various domestic and international partnerships. Senior leaders are part of domestic Security & Intelligence tables, and employees participate in various multilateral working groups related to cases, programs, and strategic threats.
• Effective program integrity measures must be structured yet flexible, evidence-based, adaptive, and technologically enhanced. They should also be defensible, proactive, and data-driven, utilizing targeted risk analysis tools to identify and manage risks from unpredictable migration patterns before they materialize.

Priorities

• Continue to secure the integrity of the Canadian border perimeter building on IRCC’s collaborative relationship with United States counterparts, our other Migration Five allies in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, and enhancing relationships with other partners such as the European Union to fulfill the Government of Canada’s commitment to strengthened visa integrity, through legislative, policy, and operational measures.
• Perform data-driven risk management to support efficient service delivery and client service ensuring integrity risks are managed through consistent and defensible processes, both in policy/program design and in application processing. Decision making is supported by effective and timely dissemination of evidence-based risk analysis and indicators.
• Deliver a risk-based decision-making model by leveraging capabilities of Digital Platform Modernization (DPM) integrating risk management principles within the Department’s digitization of programs and services, through the increasing use of advanced analytics, automated functionality, and looking forward, through DPM.

Current Program

• Within the Department, high-level operational program integrity risks include criminality, human smuggling, security, health and safety, fraud and abuse, volumes and processing pressures.
• As such, IRCC, in collaboration with partners, is addressing the following top issues:
  • Identity fraud: IRCC is responsible for establishing identity of newcomers to Canada. The use of biometrics and source documents is key to identity management.
  • Inadmissible clients: IRCC must ensure that clients, including users of the immigration system, are not inadmissible to Canada, in accordance with legislation, to ensure the health, safety and security of Canadians.
  • System abuse: This includes fraudulent applications and supporting documents, relationships of convenience and unauthorized representatives, both in Canada and overseas, utilizing unscrupulous methods to exploit our systems.

Recent Developments

• In response to global crises and the evolving immigration landscape, IRCC has:
  • Introduced policy and program changes to respond to program integrity gaps;
  • Implemented continuous monitoring and reporting mechanisms to facilitate decision making at all levels;
  • Implemented new program policies to address global crises and labour market/economic needs; and
  • Enhanced risk tools and governance to support officers in decision making.

• Necessary changes to increase public confidence in program integrity include:
  • Implementing a Global Risk Framework to strengthen officer decision making through evidence-based risk analysis to reduce adverse outcomes, such as non-genuine asylum claims and southbound apprehensions;
  • Cracking down on bad actors who facilitate the misuse of our programs and place vulnerable individuals at risk, via activities such as implementation of digital credentials, an Administrative Penalties and Consequences Regime and the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants Regulations; and
  • Introducing an early risk warning system and feedback mechanism to support and enhance the timely communication of risk intelligence information to decision makers.

• To further strengthen program integrity, the Department will:
  • Leverage cooperation with domestic partners and international allies (within the Migration Five alliance and beyond) to enhance the integrity of our border and prevent program abuse;
  • Advance changes to legislation, regulations and/or public policy, as necessary, to respond to the evolving immigration landscape and mitigate integrity risks; and
  • When in production, leverage the new digital platform to enable real-time risk calibration and risk-based triaging with continuous monitoring and governance oversight.